SEPTEMBER 2, 1996

Brabham looking for (another) F1 break

DAVID BRABHAM is due to test the Bridgestone-owned, Arrows-run Ligier-Mugen Honda in Japan this week as part of the Japanese tire company's program in preparation for entering F1 next year.

The Australian has already completed two shakedown tests with Arrows in recent weeks and hopes to be able to use the testing as a springboard to return to F1 in the future.

Brabham, who is 32 this week, is the youngest son of triple World Champion Sir Jack Brabham. He was the British Formula 3 Champion of 1989 and raced for the Brabham F1 team in 1990. Dropped because of financial considerations, Brabham began racing Tom Walkinshaw's Silk Cut Jaguar sportscars in mid-1991. The following year he was one of the GT class winners for the Bud Light Jaguar team at the Daytona 24 Hours. Unfortunately Jaguar was winding down its sportscar operations at the time, but in mid 1993 David shared a Unipart-sponsored Jaguar XJ220C with David Coulthard and John Nielsen to win the GT class at Le Mans. They were later disqualified for a technicality.

While a Jaguar driver, David tried to keep up his F1 links testing for Lotus in November 1991 and for Arrows in May 1992 and again in March 1993. In August 1993 he signed to be lead driver for the ill-fated Simtek F1 team. After struggling through 1994 he was dropped at the start of 1995 because there was no budget to run him. He raced instead for BMW in the British Touring Car Championship. This year he has been driving a McLaren sportscar in Japan.